


Taking a Break From Magic

by GretchenSinister



Category: Labyrinth (1986), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 19:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20626550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Repost for someone else!Jack Frost/Sarah Williams Jarath/SarahCrossover with LabyrinthJack Frost has fun playing with the kids even if he sometimes has to humor them like when Toby claims his sister can see him.Except she can.And she is a very pretty girl around his own age ( give or take a few centuries), but now Jack sees weird scurrying creatures out of the corner of eye and they are NOT elves.And there appears to be a barn owl stalking him."So I don’t mention Toby.Sarah just wants a normal Christmas break. She’s not down with Jack Frost showing up in her room. Mostly from her perspective because nope actually I don’t need a reason for that.There is a high probability of future, though not present, Jareth/Sarah in this little fic.





	Taking a Break From Magic

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 11/4/2013.

“Oh, fuck off,” Sarah mutters into her pillow when she hears a tapping at her window. For the past four years, it’s never meant anything she wants to deal with at the moment. Why can’t she have a normal Christmas break? Sure, her definition of “normal” was skewed beyond belief when she was just fifteen, but that did _not_ mean she didn’t know that fae royalty were not normal in any sense of the word.   
  
Well. Maybe if you were using the definition of “normal” that meant “perpendicular to a surface”. Jareth was pretty good at that one.  
  
He had also been pretty good at leaving her alone, at least since her eighteenth birthday. She’d told him to go away then, and to take all his little goblin henchmen with him. “You’ve chased me long enough,” she’d said. “And I’ve refused. Consistently. That’s not” (and this part she had thought long and hard about) “a balanced story.”  
  
“At least you didn’t say it wasn’t fair,” he had said, smirking as usual. “Though I think the sentiment is ultimately the same. Sarah, Sarah. Always concerned with balance. Propriety. Fairness.”  
  
“Yes,” Sarah had said, drawing herself up to her full height. Technically, she knew she was shorter than the Goblin King, but at that moment she had been looking him straight in the eyes. “And you, not.”  
  
He had raised his eyebrows briefly then, with a sudden understanding flashing in his eyes. “The exact opposite.”   
  
Sarah had taken a deep breath and nodded.  
  
“Very well,” he had said. “The next time we meet, I shall call you and _you_ will answer without knowing what you have been drawn into.”  
  
“And you will reject what I offer,” Sarah had replied, though the way he had acquiesced had made her uneasy.  
  
“Think well on it,” he had said. “For from your hands I would take a crown of cold iron.”  
  
And he had vanished, and she hadn’t seen him since. Once or twice she had seen goblins out of the corners of her eyes, but they weren’t there on his orders. She had learned to tell the difference a while ago.  
  
So now, hearing the noise at her window, she was both annoyed and deeply disappointed. Why was he breaking their bargain so soon? She had hoped—well, forget that now. Was it because she had spent some time talking to a boy today? That meant he was still keeping tabs on her! Horrible, horrible creature. It wasn’t as if she had really been interested in the kid anyway. He was too young, and going barefoot in winter? What was up with that?  
  
With an annoyed sigh, she pushed herself up, and, wrapping her comforter around herself because it was December, darnit, and Jareth didn’t deserve her looking any more dignified, she went over to the window.  
  
Where she saw, much to her surprise, not Jareth. She smiled—in relief, only in relief—before realizing that the person outside her window was in fact the boy from the afternoon. And he was taking her smile as an invitation to phase through the glass, which caused said smile to instantly vanish.  
  
Before he was all the way through, Sarah had grabbed the prop sword from the brackets above her bed and was pointing it at his chest. “Jack,” she said coolly, “If that’s your real name. What a surprise seeing you here.”  
  
“You…um…don’t seem that surprised,” Jack said, looking down at the blade, which, while duller than a butter knife, was still sharper than a baseball bat and about as heavy as one.  
  
“It’s a long story,” she said.  
  
“So’s mine.” He grinned disarmingly.  
  
Sarah frowned and remained armed. “You need to leave.”  
  
The look of hurt on his face was genuine, but Sarah had seen genuine hurt on a certain other face before. It didn’t mean that she had to do anything to assuage it. “That’s right. I don’t know where you’re from, or who you are, but you just came into my bedroom without permission. I don’t like that.”  
  
“But—I—you don’t understand.”   
  
He looked like a kicked puppy. Sarah restrained herself from rolling her eyes. “You’re right. I don’t. You didn’t explain it to me this afternoon. And guess what, kid? You don’t understand me either. I’m dealing with my own shit right now, okay? And not just college.”  
  
“Please—don’t make me leave, I swear I didn’t mean any harm—but I’ve been alone and you could see me and—”  
  
“Yeah, that’s great and all,” Sarah said, “but I’m taking a break from magic right now. And from guys showing up out of literally nowhere and thinking I’ll be impressed with that. Now. Leave.” She pushed the sword toward him, feeling her comforter fall around her shoulders like an ermine robe.  
  
So intently was she looking at Jack, that she didn’t see the small movements in the corners of her room, but Jack did. Whatever those things were, it was clear she had more than just a prop sword to back up her words—though those were plenty powerful enough. He backed toward the window, feeling like he had been punched in the gut. After finally finding someone who wasn’t a spirit to talk to, this was the welcome he got. Well, it wasn’t much different from the spirit welcomes, so there was that.  
  
“Sarah,” he said, just before he left, causing her to swing the swordpoint up to his face, “I don’t think you’re taking a break from magic at all.”  
  
“Out. Now,” she said, and as he realized he couldn’t stay even if he wanted to, he knew he had been speaking the truth. He wondered where she had learned to do that.  
  


* * *

  
  
Somewhere, a smitten smile revealed a mouthful of crooked, fanglike teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> marypsue said: Oh, the cleverness of you. You know, the way you write Jareth and Sarah hits all of my sweet spots and might be one of the only contexts in which I could see them working out.


End file.
